8 Answers
8

GMail Conversation View does what you want without having to copy replies into your folders. Sometimes it doesn't properly pull in your replies, and it doesn't start conversations if you initiated them, but it is the most similar to gmail I have found.

This works but it goes against Google’s recommendations for IMAP clients (to not make copies of sent messages, sent GMail already does that anyway), and slows down mail delivery by a factor of two as the message is not just sent but also copied into your folder (including big attachments). What is needed is to just see the sent message in the folder, not to really copy it there.
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Jesse GlickMar 7 '13 at 16:10

2

Obviously for POP and SMTP as opposed to IMAP setups this works a treat and doesn't duplicate messages. The sent replies only appear in your inbox, not in your sent mail folder, which actually works really well in practice.
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Giles RobertsNov 11 '13 at 10:10

Or, if you prefer not to use the Global Inbox, create a custom search folder: right-click the account, choose "Search Messages", then "Save as Search Folder", and customise it exactly as you did. It's the same thing under the hood, but for me (with multiple mail accounts, that I do want to keep separate), looks closer to how I like my mail.
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hvdNov 18 '14 at 11:28

@hvd, worked great! I had to select "match all messages" option and it worked, thx!
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Aquarius PowerNov 18 '14 at 18:04

If you set Thunderbird to place sent mails in the Inbox folder you can achieve it. This works great for me. I use my Inbox as 'ongoing issues'. So, placing the sent messages (that could be thought of a new issue or a reply to an ongoing issue) in inbox is ok.

If you use Gmail. Your thunderbird will sync the folder structure which includes an "All Mail". Use this folder instead of "Inbox" and use the threaded view will make the threads include sent replies.

I prefer this way to the plugin "Thunderird Conversations" because the plugin is very slow to load when the thread is very long. And sometimes the plugin doesn' t display attachments properly. And this way avoids the extra costs of the option "Place replies in the folder of the message being replied to" will incur.

I use the Copy Sent to Current extension to do what it says.... that way I have my sent emails in the sent folder for archival purposes as well as in the folder I was in when I composed the email. That combined with the threaded view gets me the perfect conversation.

Edit: the only problem is that when you search for a conversation, it displays the replies both from your inbox/archives folder AND the sent folder, so perhaps you don't want to use this. But I thought I'd put the option out there.